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BRAVE DEEDS

Name: BRAVE DEEDS
Author: Ann Alma
ISBN: 978-0-88899-791-3

HOW ONE FAMILY SAVED MANY FROM THE NAZIS

by Ann Alma ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2008

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During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, many sided with the Germans, but many others resisted and created a movement dedicated to sabotage and to the rescue of Jews and Gentiles in danger. Fran and Mies Braal, one such couple, opened their country home to children of Resistance members and to a wounded Canadian airman. Alma tells the true story of this brave family through the voice of an anonymous fictional narrator, using invented dialogue and imagined scenarios to describe daily life in the home. Frightening moments—Nazis on search, false alarms, illness (hepatitis)—punctuate a routine which includes a makeshift education for the children. In her epilogue, the author explains her use of this narrator, whom she would like to “stand for all children who go through war” as a way to tell the real story from a young person’s perspective. However, this fictionalization combined with the real characters and black-and-white historical photographs may leave readers confused about how the nameless, genderless protagonist fits in. (historical note, glossary, further readings) (Fictionalized nonfiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: May 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-88899-791-3

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Groundwood

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

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THE CENTURY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

by Peter Jennings & Todd Brewster ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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Just in time for the millennium comes this adaptation of Jennings and Brewster’s The Century (1998). Still a browsable, coffee-table edition, the book divides the last 100 years more or less by decade, with such chapter headings as “Shell Shock,” “Global Nightmare,” and “Machine Dreams.” A sweeping array of predominantly black-and-white photographs documents the story in pictures—from Theodore Roosevelt to O.J., the Panama Canal to the crumbling Berlin Wall, the dawn of radio to the rise of Microsoft—along with plenty of captions and brief capsules of historical events. Setting this volume apart, and making it more than just a glossy textbook overview of mega-events, are blue sidebars that chronicle the thoughts, actions, and attitudes of ordinary men, women, and children whose names did not appear in the news. These feature-news style interviews feature Milt Hinton on the Great Migration, Betty Broyles on a first automobile ride, Sharpe James on the effect of Jackie Robinson’s success on his life, Clara Hancox on growing up in the Depression, Marnie Mueller on life as an early Peace Corps volunteer, and more. The authors define the American century by “the inevitability of change,” a theme reflected in the selection of photographs and interviews throughout wartime and peacetime, at home and abroad. While global events are included only in terms of their impact on Americans, this portfolio of the century is right for leafing through or for total immersion. (index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-385-32708-0

Page Count: 245

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

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CIVIL WAR ARTIST

by Taylor Morrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

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It took four weeks for illustrations of scenes from the US’s Civil War battles to make it from the front lines to readers’ hands; Morrison (Cheetah, 1998, etc.) explains that process in his uniquely handsome book. Morrison introduces the fictional artist, William Forbes, commissioned by the fictional Burton’s Illustrated News to follow the Union Army into battle at Bull Run. Throughout the day’s fighting Forbes makes quick sketches; it is risky business, and he is often in mortal peril. That night he makes a more complete drawing, which is handed to a courier and taken back to the Burton offices. There, engravers set to work translating Forbes’s drawing to a grid of wood blocks (Morrison includes interesting incidentals along the way, giving the process its due). The images are converted to electrotype, whereafter it is finally ready for the operators and pressman. Shortly after that, the newsboys are seen hawking the illustrated weekly, containing Forbes’s image a mere month after the actual event. Morrison successfully renders the complexities of illustrating newspapers 150 years ago, and just as successfully conveys that in abandoning the wood block for the photograph, some of the art was sacrificed for speed. (glossary) (Picture book. 6-10)